From 203 pounds to 1 Fit Chick!

Update: Just read that eryn , who is running the C25K program, is in on the 10 pound mini goal, too!

What a great time for an extra dose of motivation! My blog buddies and fellow runners, getupnow and bigprof are setting a 10 pound mini goal for this month and I WANT IN!!! getupnow has set the ball rolling with a 10 pound ticker, can you imagine it, and ‘lo and behold’ bigprof has one up,too! Well, ya know what I had to do when I spied all of this going on! Yup, it just took me about an hour to figure out this ticker on the front page thing and I will admit there was a bit of blue swear smoke hovering about my head for awhile, but I got it!!! A 10 lb ticker for the month of June. Tick-tick-tick little ticker, tick me down to 185. Weeee! This is the perfect time to dig in and drop some pounds, I mean, jeeze already, July the “shorts ‘n swimsuit” season commencing is staring me right in the lookers! Time to get a wiggle on…

I decided to weigh myself today, although I didn’t really think I wanted to because for some strange reason I thought my weight was up, and was surprised to see the scales at 195! Remember I banished the scales from the kingdom when they hovered at 197 and then crept to 198/199 ish? I’ll take this 195 and RUN with it! Now to get a tighter reign on the chow and that 10 pounds is outta here! Chop chop!

I took a full mandatory rest day today. I had two huge runs this week and although I’m drooling to run all of the damned time now, common sense prevails(thank god I’m not losing that along with my memory as I age!) and I know my muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones ‘n joints, trick knee and what ever the hell else is in my legs will thank me!

Ooooh I’m so pumped about this mini goal!!! Great idea, getupnow!

Good-nite all!

Read ‘em and weep! I did 6 miles yesterday and what a run. I was starting to get a little fatigued in the lower legs the last mile, but not anything like I used to struggle with before, with walks thrown in… this was continuous running again today!!! I’m so pumped, holy cow, me 6 miles! I’ll need a little more convincing, but I may have found what works best for me, and that is to bike a little after a long run to keep my legs from stiffening up. And here I’ve been stretching out and resting after…sheesh who in the world does that??? Apparently not me!

Today I have three fair sized lawns to mow and after that I predict “feet up” in the back yard and ohhhh let’s say, maybe one refreshing beverage…oh! or WAIT, maybe a whole damned blender full and lug it to the beach, settle me butt into the sand and mellow out, man! Ahhhhh…

I’m snatching a few moments to update before getting out there and seizing the day. Oh what a day it’s going to be. Honestly, I’d love to sit in the back yard and suck back frozen blender concoctions, get a wicked snap on and belt out a few tunes on the guitar,  it’s that kind of day, but I won’t! 
I do want to get in a run in a few minutes. I see the sun getting ready to take hold and need to go now while it’s cool.

Yesterday I did a 12 mile bike ride and then an easy 1.5 mile jog out the light house road. A very rocky in patches,  rough  road that washes out sometimes in winter, kind of road!  An easy does it and enjoy the view , kind of road.  Got a big lawn mowed did some more of my own yard/garden stuff and feel into bed last night at about 9:30! LOL…should be really good looking today after all that beauty rest!

Back later…gotta run…no, really!

Up with the crows this morn and WOW what a sunny day in the making! This is my long run day and I wrestled awhile with wondering ’should I go now, or tonight cause it’ll be a gorgeous run evening’ Oh what to do?…I ran! So, I’m trotting along thinking bout all kinds of inane things, anything to amuse myself with as I’d left my ipod home to let the sounds of the sea be my tunes today, and I got to thinking about how tyler durden  can run 6, 7, 8 and who knows how many more miles (cause she has a magic hat)  anyways, I had mentioned yesterday about annoying w/o video instructors and Tyler, bless her heart, commented on the old aerobic class “oye oye” cry. What an irritating thing to have stuck in ones head esp. running. And cripes, the more I tried to not think about it , the faster the Oye Oye’s kept coming! Oye Oye!  ‘Stop it’, I said. Oye Oye! ‘please stop’ I sniveled.  Apparently I’ll torment myself to the point of insanity if there’s no one around to bug! Thank God I was 2 miles from home. Only! I was scheduled to run 3 miles today and  those 3 miles came so easily that guess what???

***Today’s run: 5.5 MILES!!! No walk breaks, at all! Zip Zero Zilch! Best of all after a great stretch I rode my bike a few miles, all easy does it like, and my legs feel great!
“Oye-Oye”!

Had a scheduled rest day yesterday. I went for a couple of windy, but leisurely bike rides, also mowed a lawn which took about an hour. These ARE rest days for me. My happy mellow little bike rides are activities and a darned good habit to get into!…only the ones where I peddle like a woman possessed, sweat buckets and fall off of the bike when I get home are what I consider to be true workouts. I tell ya, I’m running a tight ship here! No going adrift!

Today is a cross train day and in a few minutes I’m headed off to the w/o room for an hour of step circuit training, a video titled “Cardio and Weights” by Cathe Friedrich. Don’t know if anyone is familiar with her, so let me say this, these workouts are unbelievably challenging and this lady has abs and muscle tone that makes ya want to work like hell to have the same. Great instruction, doesn’t waste a lot of time explaining the next moves, which can be annoying once you learn a video, and NO squeaky, giggly, repetitiously annoying sayings like ” you can do it…you can do it… you can do it” the whole way through! as you can tell I’ve wasted money on some doozies! I don’t want to sound like I’m promoting online video suppliers, but I like how you can now preview videos and read others reviews before buying, so I’m putting a link to Collage Video site in my links section, FYI, only!!!

The rest of today I’m gardening. Doing a little more planting and starting a few more things in my greenhouse. Simply a mellow, peaceful day planned and that’s the way uh huh-uh huh I like it! Uh huh-uh huh.

Yesterday…that’d be Monday:
I had those two huge lawns creep up on me to mow , which by the by was supposed to be an easy stretch and strength day (with emphasis on easy) and after tearing the place apart to locate the pedometer, off I went. And the tally: 14,165 steps worth of ‘armstronging’ a mower back and forth through grass that I swear was even longer than when I started out last week. A lot of damned mowing!
Today…that’d be today! ha ha ha ! I told my tired feet we’d have to try and run the required 2.5 miles scheduled for today. I was a tad bit tight in the legs and had some complaining from the foot department, but I said “shut up we’re going anyway”! Stiffness didn’t last long and I was surprised to find I felt pretty darned good after about 15 min. Believe you me, this was a very mellow trot I had going on! -you call it a fast walk, I call it running! (read that somewhere sooo funny!)

Soon as I got back from my run I jumped right on my bike…too nice a morning to pass on that…crazy for cardio? or just plain crazy? Long as I’m harmless, right?!
Finally, I mowed Mum’s lawn and Oh what a lucky daughter I am. She had been hankering for turkey and cooked a small one for lunch. For lunch!!! We had potato/bread dressing, squash and that cranberry stuff I loves so much with the old turkey bird! I somehow managed, in between sinfully delicious mouthfuls, to say “OMG Mum, isn’t this good, OMG”!!! I know where I’m having a little graze tomorrow!
That’s it for now. This is 1 fit chick signing off. “over and out”

Because it feels good when I stop!

This evening I was scheduled to do a 3 mile run, and now I know I said I would stick to this program to the letter, but me being a fickle and free spirit, I went my own way! What a great evening for running. Cool wind a blowing and a magnificent red sun just disappearing below the horizon and a brand spanking new pair of Adidas runners fresh out of the box to try. I don’t know what it is with me and new runners, but there was no way in hell 3 miles was enough. I did 4 miles and I feel great, my feet loved the cushioning and get this…I ran without socks! Weird, huh? I usually sweat up the tops of my socks and these runners feel all soft like socks, so I thought why not, and so I did. No hot burning feet for me! I don’t know what they’re doing to the running shoes this year, but I’m loving it!

Today I made up a double batch of salsa. Quite a process, but so worth it. I don’t touch the store bought stuff any more. I love it on rice cakes. 35 calories per cake, how can ya beat that? I have 13 -2cup jars and one 4 cup jar. Ran out of jars so there’s a bowl full in the fridge all ready for chowing down on. Healthy fuel for moi!

And get this, chicken breasts were on sale and this smart gal baked a bunch up, cooked a mess of whole grain brown rice, steamed to crisp tender a bunch of stirfry veggies and threw the whole mess together in one huge stir fry dish. Now they’re cooling on the cupboard in meal sized containers and then it’s off to the deep freeze. I have very nutritious runners meals all ready to go! Fuel baby, gotta have fuel!

Who am I? Will this efficiently anal version of myself last? Nah, not to worry…I’m burnt out man, phewww! I didn’t even get my forty winks today.

What’s this? No food log! Dammit what’s my excuse ? oKAY, i GIVE UP!!! It’s madness and I’m not doing it. I can’t come on here and turn over these types of new leaves, and what’s more, that note book for my back pocket actually is a confirmed pain in the @ss.
I got to thinking about it and here is something I can do. Since I started this blog I have been eating very healthy. Roughly the same breakfasts, snacks, salads, soups and sangies, decent protein and veggie meals, and so on. Why log when it’s all good? Sooner or later I’ll probably have an accident, ya know trip over my sweet tooth, fall into a dish of some chocolatey goo and have to eat my way out to save myself. I’ve done a lot of tripping and saving my whole life…until my all time high weight one year ago this past winter. I’ve been doing great this past year, I mean I can’t remember the last time I gnawed my way through the girth of a mammoth sized chocolate bar, or devoured a bag of chocolates, awww you get the idea, I worry about losing control and falling off the wagon. Maybe that’s what’s up with the ready made meals! What I will do is log anything I shouldn’t have eaten, and /or anything I feel I may have overindulged in. Hopefully I won’t have much to confess to! So the notebook becomes a store list and the pressure to log food is lifted and I am free…free…free

I know one thing for certain and that is I’m off the scales till the end of the month. Enough already! I need to concentrate more on eating for fuel so I can get the most out of my workouts and be successful with my 10k running program. I’ve made a commitment to myself to put all I’ve got into it. Hey bigprof, just saw your comment and I’m interested to see how I make out with this as well. I’ve been thinking about how simple it is with running 2&3 miles, rest days and cross train days and even stretch/strength??? Feels like I’m on vacation! But somebody with obviously more experience than I, okay…totally mega more experience, designed this to work and I’m going to see where it takes me. To me it appears easy this “novice” level. All is good…until I look at week 7 and see the 5.5 mile run, and then week 8 and the dreaded 10k. 6.5 miles!!! That equals 1.5 miles over the 5 miles I’ve struggled with for so long now. Can I finally get over the 5 mile hump? Fingers and toes are crossed…Mr. Kitty has his eyes crossed.(sigh) my hero!

Bfst- skim milk/ slice toast/ banana

Lunch- small garden salad/ some roast beast/ yogurt

Snack- apple/nuts

Supper- large salad with cukes,tomatoes,carrots and grapes & a bit of shredded cheese / chicken breast/

cuppa coffee- sugar and cereal cream